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Look at the stock prices of the companies installing owning and operating solar and wind farms. They are dogshit. I think the boom is to capture the transmissi
by applied_heat 3y ago
Look at the stock prices of the companies installing owning and operating solar and wind farms. They are dogshit.
I think the boom is to capture the transmission system capacity near the best wind/solar sites, try and stay in business for the duration of the 20 year energy purchase agreement signed with local utility, and then mergers and aquisitions so that the larger entity can exert leverage upon renewal.
Power outages have a massive cost on society so the value of the marginal unit of electricity is very high.
- roenxi 3y agoNot necessarily a problem; recall that the way economics works is the market will have marginal businesses that are on the verge of being unprofitable to run - so seeing some borderline cases is not troubling. It looks like solar is finally becoming economic; so it is reasonable that the marginal producers right now will be solar farms. But assuming the price trends continue businesses will start to appear that make good money. Although there does seem to be a serious risk to grid stability. Most of the energy emergencies in the last few years have been linked to areas that invested heavily in renewables.
- Panzer04 3y agoIndeed. Arguably it shows just how good for the economy wind and solar are - they are so easy to install and build that companies that run businesses doing that just don't have any real edge.
- hackermatic 3y agoSome important businesses are just terrible investments. Airlines come to mind; they always seem to be one minor downturn away from insolvency.
- pinkgolem 3y agoThere is just no barrier to entry in the market. You can get a small PV going for a few hundred bucks, and it scales more or less linear from that point on. And cost to entry is reducing over time